Tuesday, October 16, 2007

YouTube and Copyright...

So there is this fantastic 80's TV show called Remington Steele that star Stephanie Zimbalist and Pierce Brosnan (in his younger days...). I really like the creativity of this show, even though compared to CSI and Law and Order, Remington Steele would not even be in the same league. Hey, it was the 80's...give 'em a break!

Anyway, in the last few months I've noticed that, like almost EVERY other TV show, a lot of clips of it are on YouTube. Cool! I'd watch some periodically and it was always fun to see the show in another language...when I was in Italy this summer they ran an Italian dubbed version during the day! It was awesome! However, in the last few weeks, I have noticed that ALL of the 300 some videos have disappeared (with the exception of maybe 5). The videos are no longer available and most of the user's accounts have been suspended. One user had put a message on their profile that FOX made them remove the videos...I do not believe other networks have gone this far cause you can find clips of sooooo many tv shows on YouTube. I am just wondering why FOX has done this. Cause really, what harm is there in having clips of one of your shows on YouTube? If anything it is a great marketing tool since it gets people to watch the show who might not have known about it otherwise...kind of like me.